Avondale Town Center rebuild coming - but without grocery tenant, for now

AVONDALE – Physical work on the new Avondale Town Center is now expected to begin in less than two months.

Minus a tenant for the 15,000 square-foot grocery space.

"We have a closing and construction set for July," Jeff Beam of developer The Community Builders told The Enquirer. "But we had disruptions in the grocery product."

Community Builders, the city of Cincinnati and other partners in the multi-use project at the northwest corner of Reading Road and Forest Avenue have decided to move forward even without a grocery tenant.

"They feel it's important to get the project going," Beam said.

The developer is working to fill the grocery space with an independent retailer or other providers of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat in an effort to alleviate the lack of access to fresh produce in the neighborhood – a phenomenon known as a food desert

Community Builders (TCB) sent a fully negotiated lease in January 2016 to the Missouri-based grocery chain Save-A-Lot, Beam said. The lease was not signed because of a pending sale of the discount chain to a private equity investor that was finalized in October.

"We're still fully behind the project," said Patricia Milton, president of the Avondale Community Council. "We are exploring other options for the grocery. We know TCB is fully committed to getting a grocer. We're remaining diligent and patient and know the grocery will come."

The last grocery in Avondale, an Aldi, closed at the Town Center in November 2008.

The nine-acre, city-owned Town Center site was originally developed in 1983 by a group including basketball great Oscar Robertson.

Most of the existing strip mall and two stand-alone buildings facing Reading Road, now homes to a fast-food restaurant and a check-cashing business, will be demolished, Beam said.

Overall, plans call for the project to consist of 80,000 square feet of commercial space on ground floors of two new buildings and 119 units of mixed-income housing, market-rate, low-income and workforce rental, Beam said.

The grocer is on the street-grade level of the south building. A new building north of the existing Carmel Presbyterian Church will be anchored by a dentist office and a medical clinic jointly operated by UC Health and the Cincinnati Health Department.

"It's very much a centerpiece," Beam said. "We have a letter of intent. The lease is in discussion."

A source of healthful food, a pharmacy, laundry and neighborhood-based health services are vital in Avondale's turnaround. 

Median household income in Avondale is about $17,500, roughly half the city's average. Violence, poor health among residents and substandard housing have contributed to Avondale’s standing near the bottom of life-expectancy rankings for Cincinnati neighborhoods, according to the city’s health department. Life expectancy in Avondale is 68.2 years, almost 20 years less than predominantly white Mount Lookout (87.8 years), located four miles to the southeast.

About 90 percent of Avondale's 12,500 residents are African-American.

The Town Center development is the third phase of Community Builders’ $29.5 million Choice Neighborhoods grant received in December 2012 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The grant has provided for 319 total units of new or refurbished housing in11 buildings that run along Reading Road from Blair Avenue to South Fred Shuttlesworth Circle.

The project has preserved 140 units of affordable housing. Renovation of two more apartment buildings along Reading, the Somerset Manor and Almeida, will be completed within 30 days, Beam said.

Among residents of the renovated buildings, Beam said, surveys show that 97 percent say they have health insurance, 80 percent are registered to vote and 78 percent say they feel safe in their home.

"Transformation takes time," Beam said. "This is not a180-degree change."

Work continues on a former nursing home at 3635 Reading Road. It will become home to the Avondale Community Council, Avondale Youth Council and TCB's property management office.

The Town Center is a $43 million project. The section of the strip mall featuring CitiTrends clothing store will remain in place but will have a new exterior. A laundromat will locate in a newly constructed building addition south of CitiTrends.

Existing Town Center retailer City Gear will occupy commercial space near the corner of Reading and Forest. Smaller retail spaces will be built to face Reading Road.